


Smile for the Camera

by trascendenza



Category: Burn Notice
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-08-10
Updated: 2007-08-10
Packaged: 2017-10-04 06:16:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 938
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trascendenza/pseuds/trascendenza
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU of the scene in Michael's apartment from episode 1x07.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Smile for the Camera

"Listen, I hope you took my job offer seriously."

Michael, his eyes wide (and perfectly accessorized thanks to Fiona's deft touch), expression faux-innocent, licked his yogurt off the spoon.

But then Bly slipped into the "ominous threat couched in vague terms" voice. "Because round one was just a warm-up. In round two—"

"Wait wait wait." Michael let the frustration—building up to a boiling point since the moment he'd been burned—show on his face. "I know the shtick, Bly. Let's cut the crap and skip to the part where you spout off some bureaucratic bullshit about how _you're_ here just looking out for _my_ best interests. That's the part I'm really interested in."

Bly was good—only the briefest flicker of surprise at the sudden change in their game slipped through his cover before that pearly-white grin covered it up. "So you have been paying attention in class, Michael. _Good_ boy. And you've got it exactly right—except for the bullshit part, of course."

Michael let his eyes narrow and breathing go shallower as he took a step forward, invading Bly's personal space. "And why should I believe you?"

Bly spread his hands in a gesture that was supposed to engender openness, but on him, looked more like a sneak attack. "Because, Michael: it's the truth."

"_The truth_?" Michael roared, throwing the yogurt against the wall where it splattered with a wet sound. _Every good lover's quarrel starts with something being thrown_, he thought with a mental smile.

"You want to talk to me about the truth?" He crowded up against Bly, fuming and raging, until the other man was forced to sit down on the couch, and Michael placed an arm on either side of him, trapping him. He hovered, his nose hardly a breath from Bly's, screaming incoherent sentiments and generally making an emotional fool of himself.

The camera was only catching his profile from this angle, so he had to sell it extra good.

And when Bly did exactly what he was supposed to—placed a calming hand on Michael's shoulder—he took his cue to calm down. He closed his eyes and dropped his head, breaking eye contact.

"I realize I've been making your life hell, Michael. I'm really very sorry for that."

Michael, carefully regulating his breathing to its most ragged, let his face fall forward onto Bly's shoulder.

"I just want to know why this happened to me," he breathed onto Bly's neck, keeping his words low and choked.

_Sell it, sell it, sell it._ He had to make sure that no matter what Bly _actually_ thought about what was about to happen here, he would react the way Michael needed.

Bly's hand moved up slowly from his neck to cup his jaw.

_Bingo._

"Believe me," Bly said, and if Michael were anyone else, he would have believed the sincerity in Bly's tone, "you don't want to. You're better off out of this life."

Michael raised his head just enough to re-establish eye contact.

"Yeah?" He whispered, lips not far from Bly's.

"You know why I'm really here, Michael?" Again with the sincerity. Bly's eyes were practically dripping with it now, too. "They've wanted you dead from the start. But I won't let that happen."

"But what did I _do_—"

Bly slid his thumb over Michael's mouth. "Shut up, Michael."

_Like stealing candy from a baby._

He leaned in and kissed Bly, coming in at a thirty-five degree angle to maximize camera exposure. Bunching one hand on Bly's button-up, he kissed like he was a fish and Bly was the water. _Gotta sell it,_ he repeated to himself, over and over, even when it started getting beyond the point of the operation. Thirty good seconds of this was likely all he needed for the footage, but he also hadn't factored in one rogue element: Bly kissing him back the same way. Bly grabbing onto his fabulous shirt and yanking Michael down into his lap, forcing Michael to straddle him, and then slipping his hands under the material and mapping out Michael's back with his palms.

Most of all, he hadn't counted on Bly being a good kisser.

He'd expected some awkwardness with tongues, teeth, just a hint of stubble—and there was all that. But there was also his bottom lip being bitten, Bly's hips fitting way too comfortably between his far-too-open thighs, and a feeling of heat building down there that he didn't even want to think about.

And when his clothes started coming off, and when Bly's—Jason's sincerity was obviously not faked—he told himself that now he was just selling it _really_ well. Michael had handed him the gun, and Jason was happily shooting his own foot off.

Michael's only problem, of course, was the risk of all great and daring operations: nothing this good can ever be faked. No exceptions.

*

The photos were everything he could have wanted and then some. Not the clearest, of course, since this was at-home surveillance—but the quality of the material at hand abolished any concerns over brightness and contrast. The most important part was that both of them were clearly identifiable.

Good God, were they ever.

The folder with Jason's sentence was nearly complete. A few last crowning touches from this collection, and the sentence would be done: signed, sealed and delivered.

Five seconds through the shredder was all it took to eliminate the papers, but the photos took much longer, because Michael spent two hours committing them to memory, before he burned them one by one over his sink.

Looked like it was time for a new plan.


End file.
